He has helped train Brazilian mixed martial artists Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida. Silva, who is the reigning UFC Middleweight Champion, credited Seagal with teaching him the kick that knocked out Vitor Belfort in their fight at UFC 126 in February 2011,[10][11] and Machida also credited him for helping him perfect the crane kick that he used to knock out Randy Couture at UFC 129 in May 2011.[12][13]
On May 5, 2011, Seagal appeared on the Sherdog Radio Network’s “It’s Time” show with Bruce Buffer and spoke about his relationship with Silva and Machida as well his training methods. He explained: "Anderson had originally sent me a little postcard saying, 'Please teach me your lethal stuff'. Because a lot of my students know that a lot of the stuff I have is punishing or effective, shall we say. They left a number, and the number was Jorge Guimaraes, the manager of those guys in Black House. He said, ‘Yeah, man, the guys all want to learn from you.’ I went over there and began". In regards to his teaching of the kicks he said: "With Lyoto, I came in probably five days before the (Couture) fight, something like that, started working on different kinds of elbows, different kinds of punching, different kinds of feetwork... but particularly the kick. I think against a lot of the guys who have spent a lot of their energy on wrestling, they’re not exactly what I would call great strikers. The kick can be very effective. This kick is different. This kick, the thing that's deceptive about it is that, the normal (technique) where you lift up your knee and you kick, this one I'm kind of trying to teach the guys to lead with the foot. I don’t want to say too much about it because I don't want to give it away completely to the world. It's different and it’s hard to see. It's very difficult to see coming, and that's how my guys have been successful with that."[14]